I've finished life's chores assigned to me,
So put me on a boat headed out to sea.
Please send along my fishing pole
For I've been invited to the fishin' hole.
Where every day is a day to fish,
To fill your heart with every wish.
Don't worry, or feel sad for me,
I'm fishin' with the Master of the sea.
......
You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.
That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair
......
This sad sequence came as aftermath
To the day I gave my goldfish a bath.
She was so happy. There was nary a scowl,
as she got her rubdown with the towel.
Then, into the water she slid -- in the nude,
to swim. A vision of piscatorial pulchritude.
I do get sentimental about a fish so ornamental..
And I knew: for her to flourish, I must properly nourish.
......
I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.
I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn't often.
I said the forest's only part of a tree.
Who needs the whole girl if you've got her knee?
Sick of the dust raised by the modern era,
......
I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of the dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
......
On the jetty - in the mist - dry under ponchos
Surf pounding at concrete - biting at the shore
Glowing gaslamp beckoning gnats - freezing on the tank
Poles in hands - lines in water - standing in entwined silence
Coho spawning - swallowing offered bait
Father and Son sharing heartbeats and serenity
An art or a sport
Some whisper a ‘crazy obsession’,
And like Golf where age won't cut short
At least our pastime won't lead to depression.
A hook and a line
Much patience, sun balms,
No rush when your world is sublime
With glistening waters and a horizon of wavering palms.
......
Grandfather...
Will you play with me today...
Will you take me fishing...
Will you show me your way...
Will you tell me the difference
Between a crane and a loon...
Where’s your best fishing spot
At the Audubon Park lagoon...
......
WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with
any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
......
1
As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the
......